Poultry feed



United States Patent 2,813,793 POULTRY FEED Harry E. Drennan, Los Angeles, Calif. No Drawing. Application June 23, 1953, Serial No. 363,691 4 Claims. (Cl. 99-4) The present invention is concerned with eliminating cannibalism in poultry and inducing faster feathering thereof.

Cannibalism is one of the most serious difiiculties faced by the farmer in raising poultry. As feathers appear on chickens, particularly at the tail and wings, there is a tendency for other chickens to pick and pull at the feathers, thus causing bleeding and, with continued picking, death of the chickens. Many chickens are lost in this way, particularly among white chickens.

Numerous proposals have been made for the purpose of eliminating the above mentioned problem, but all of these proposals have been unsatisfactory for one reason or another. Thus, for example, it has been proposed to debeak chickens to avoid cannibalism and, while this will eliminate the problem, it is also extremely time consuming and expensive.

Accordingly, the principal object of the present invention is to provide an extremely simple, inexpensive and otherwise attractive way of eliminating poultry cannibalism.

Another object of the invention is to provide a poultry feed which avoids cannibalism and, as a further advantage, induces faster feathering.

Still further objects will be apparent from the detailed description of the invention which follows.

The foregoing objects are accomplished, according to the present invention, by virtue of the discovery that poultry cannibalism is due to a specific type of cellulose deficiency in poultry feed, namely, a deficiency in the cellulose found in paper, i. e., wood cellulose. Accordingly, the present invention involves feeding paper cellulose with or without conventional poultry rations to poultry. This has been found to efiectively eliminate cannibalism and, in addition, causes substantially faster feathering of the poultry.

The paper cellulose fed to the poultry, according to the invention, may be in any convenient form, e. g., ordinary paper scraps, newsprint or other paper sheet, ground paper, paper pulp, or the like may be used. As a further alternative, the paper may be pelleted with an edible binder, for example, fish oil.

The results of the invention are extremely surprising, inasmuch as they are specific to the use of paper cellulose. That is to say, other types of cellulose, such as the grain fibers which normally appear in poultry rations and lettuce and beet fibers which have also been proposed for addition to poultry feeds, have no apparent effect on cannibalism or feathering characteristics. This is well evidenced by the fact that, when a conventional poultry ration, containing about 5% by weight of crude grain fiber and to which 0.2% by weight of paper was added, was fed to 3500 chickens in a single pen, not one chicken was lost due to cannibalism. In contrast, when operating in conventional manner, i. e., using the poultry ration containing only the crude fibers derived from the grain and no paper, from 50 to 350 chickens out of the batch of 3500 are normally lost due to cannibalism.

The exact reason why paper cellulose is successful when other forms of cellulose fail is not fully understood. However, it is believed that the paper cellulose, in contrast to other forms of cellulose, is at least partially digested. In any event, the paper definitely satisfies the diet deficiency which causes cannibalism, since chickens demonstrate no inclination whatsoever towards ICC feather stealing, once regular feeding with paper is begun. Preferably, the feeding of paper is begun when the chickens are only a few days old and is continued until they are sent to the market. The amount of paper fed to the chickens can be widely varied, although, generally speaking, such small quantities as from 0.01% to 1% by weight, and preferably 0.2% of the poultry feed ration, whether the paper is fed with the feed ration or apart therefrom are sutficient to obtain the benefits of the invention. However, it will be appreciated that substantially larger amounts of paper cellulose than that stated can be used without detriment, although there is apparently no advantage in doing so. Normally, it is necessary to increase the amount of paper fed to the chickens as they grow older, since their appetite for the same increases substantially. In fact, it has been found that, if feeding is begun when the chickens are only a few days old, by the time they are six weeks old, five hundred chickens will eat as much as four to six pages of average size newspaper each day in but a very few minutes.

As indicated above, the paper cellulose may be fed to the chickens separately or in admixture with any conventional poultry feed ration, including grains, oil and the like, as desired.

As a typical feed ration to which paper cellulose may be added, according to the invention, may be mentioned the Ralston Purina Co.s broiler starter of the following make-up: ground yellow corn; ground grain sorghums; dehydrated alfalfa meal; soybean meal; grain, sorghum gluten meal; ground oats; fish meal; meat scraps; wheat gray shorts; dried whey; condensed fish solubles; vitamin B12 and antibiotic feed supplement; vitamin A oil; ribofiavin supplement; calcium pantothenate; niacin; D-activated animal sterol; calcium carbonate 1.50%; iodized salt 0.25%; sulfaquinoxaline 0.0125 3-nitro-4-hydroxyphenylarsonic acid 0.005%, and a trace of manganese sulfate. This ration has a guaranteed analysis as follows:

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications may be made in the invention as de-- scribed herein without in any way deviating from the spirit or scope of the invention, as defined in the appended claims.

I claim:

1. A poultry feed comprising a poultry feed ration having paper added thereto in an amount of from .0l% to 1% by weight of said feed ration, said feed minimizing cannibalism in poultry and inducing faster feathering thereof.

2. The feed of claim 1, wherein said paper is in the form of paper scraps.

3. The feed of claim 1, wherein said paper is in the form of paper sheet.

4. A poultry feed comprising a poultry feed ration having newspaper added thereto in an amount of from .01% to 1% by weight of said feed ration, said feed minimizing cannibalism in poultry and inducing faster feathering thereof.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,472,663 Kleine et al. June 7, 1949 2,623,824 Gaudry Dec. 30, 1952 2,767,094 Frieden et al. Oct. 16, 1956 FOREIGN PATENTS 744,656 Germany 1943 

